Ensor England 1870-1914text

ENGLAND By R. C. K. ENSOR OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

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Oxford University Press, Amen House> London GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE "WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS CAPE TOWN Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University FIRST PUBLISHED FEBRUARY REPRINTED MARCH 1936, 1941, 1944, 1946, PRINTED IN CRKAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD BY CHARLES BATBY, PRINTER TO TH1C UNIVERSITY


PREFACE date at which this volume ends, the outbreak of the JL European War, is the latest for which there is enough documentary evidence to write English history scientifically. Only a short while ago the zero point must have been placed much farther back; but the wealth added to our evidences in the last ten years is exceptional. It includes, to take only a few instances, Messrs. Gooch and Tcmparley's llritish Documents, two volumes of Lord Salisbury's Life, three of Chamberlain's, all of Asquith's, Redmond's, and Lord Carnarvon's. Any one who has gratefully used these many volumes must be penetrated by the thought of his helplessness without them. There remain certain gapsa volume yet to come in c^ch of the three cases lirst-mentioned, and above all the long-expected Life of Balfour. But what we have now, vastly outweighs what we still await. In histories of recent periods it has been common and perhaps usual that names of persons still living should be distinguished from those of the dead by such prefixes as 'MrA The practice is surely a bad one; it creates an entirely unreal line of division, and hampers both writer and readers in their attempt to view the past sub specie aeternitatis. Therefore I have here wholly abstained from it. I hope that my decision will in no quarter be interpreted as discourtesy. To living people who have helped to make history, it should scarcely be a ground of complaint that they are treated as historical figures. Save one, my most outstanding debts are to the Kditor of the series, to which this volume belongs, and to two other friends Dr. J. L. Hammond and Mr. Joseph Owen (late of the Board of Education)who cheerfully embraced the onerous task of reading the fifteen chapters in manuscript, and made most valuable suggestions on thorn. 1 particularly owe it to Dr. Hammond that my attention was directed to the imprinted Gladstone Papers bearing oft the problem of Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule* But for my access to these f must also render thanks to the Gladstone Trustees and to their Secretary, Mr, A, Tilney Buxsett, who placed freely at my disposal his unique* knowledge of the Papers, their order, contents, and handwritings. No one could write a volume of this kind without seeking information upon a host of particular points from individuals qualified


n PREFACE to give'it, or from the officials of various important bodies. My debts to such informants are exceedingly numerous; but believing that they will be content with the private expression of my sincere gratitude, I do not propose to display their names here like a row of scalps. By way of historical warrant, however, I ought to mention that the interesting pieces of information from Sir George Leveson-Gower and from Mr. Lloyd George, given in the footnotes on p. 183 and p. 390 respectively, are printed here with their authorization in each case. I should like specially also to thank Mr. J. A. Spender for giving me some information under circumstances,, which I need not particularize, but which rendered his action peculiarly generous. My greatest debt, however, is to my wife; and the fact that that is a common experience among authors, shall not dissuade me from saying so. R. G. K. E.


TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF MAPS.......xviii INTRODUCTION......xix L GLADSTONE'S PRIME The duel between Gladstone and Disraeli . The Franco-Prussian War and its reactions Belgian neutrality ...... 3 The Black Sea clauses ...... 4 CardwelPs army reforms * . . Abolition of purchase . , . Short service . . . County regiments and linked battalions . Lord Selbornc's Judicature Act . . Decline of the government . * The Alabama claims . * . Lowe's match duty . . . Bruee's Licensing Bills . . . University Tests Act and Ballot Act . Effects on Ireland . . . Gladstone's first resignation , , His defeat at the polls and loss of ofHce The queen and the nation . . The Ashanli War . IL THE RULE OF DISRAELI Position of Disraeli . . . His cabinet . . . . Gladstone's withdrawal from politics , l*he Public Worship Act . , . The social legislation of 1875 . * Purchase of the Sue/, Canal shares . . The title'lixnpress of India* . . The Eastern Question . . , Serbia at war with Turkey . The Bulgarian atrocities . . Gladstone's agitation , . , The Russo-Turkish War . -The Congress of Berlin . . . Character of the settlement , . The crisis in agriculture . . . Iridi Nationalism beromrs militant . Formation of the Land League . , The South African problems . * Annexation of the Transvaal . The Zulu War ,,*,., 60

i , . . . . , , , * * . . . , . . * . . . , , , . . . . * * * 50 54 56 57 * 57 59 -43 44 45 46 4^ . . * . . . . . . . .13 .14 16 IQ ig 20 .21 * ^3 24 25 26 . a6 27 30 3^ 33 34 * 35 37 39 40 g 3 8


viii TABLE OF CONTENTS India and Afghanistan The massacre at Kabul . Midlothian and the fall of the government . III. THE ASCENDANCY OF PARNELL Whigs and radicals in the new cabinet . Bradlaugh and the parliamentary oath . Majuba and the peace after it Roberts's march to Kandahar . * Death of Lord Beaconsfield . The Land war in Ireland . . Forster's coercion and Gladstone's Land Act . The Kilmainham treaty . . The Phoenix Park murders England in Egypt . ... 77 Alexandria and Tel-el-Kebir . . Revolt of the Mahdi ...... Bo Gordon at Khartoum . * . . Death of Gordon . . . The Penjdeh Incident . . . . Consequences of Gladstone's foreign policy . Chamberlain's radical campaign . . . Franchise extension of 1884 . . . Gladstone gives place to Lord Salisbury . . Conquest of Upper Burma . . . Lord Carnarvon and Parnell * . . Gladstone and Parnell . . . . The general election of 1885 . . . Both parties change front . . . . Gladstone's third ministry . . . . Defeat of home rule . . Re-birth of English Socialism . . . IV. ECONOMICS AND INSTITUTIONS, 1870-86 Comparative populations . . . . Birth-rates . . . . . Foreign trade . . . . . Iron and Steel *. ,. . . , The transformation of shipping . . . Coal production . . . . . Seeds of economic weakness . . . The two depressions . . . . The spread of limited liability companies . . Rise of a rentier class . . . . The disaster to agriculture . . . The origins of the frozen meat trade . Developments in the na,vy . . . . The "Admiral* class . . . . Democracy and bureaucracy . , .

* * "

* fi .04

fi

,66 .67 "9 * 7 -7 72 73 74 -75 79

. . , . . . . , . . ,

.81 83 83 84 .87 88 ,90 .91 ,92 .92 94 95 97 99 .100 *

'102 103 . .104 . . 105 . .107 , ,108 . no , * * i< i . . na . .114 . 1x5 . 119 . , JS>l . ^23 * 124


U* UUNTKNTS ix Formation of the local government board .... 126 Municipal enterprise . . . . Changes in Whitehall , . . . Status of trade unions .... , 131 Trade-union development * . . . Rising'plnnc of prosperity and eomfort .... 134 V. MENTAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS, 1870-86 1870 as a 'watershed* . . . . Prominence of religion in mid-Victorian Entjjland . Dominance of Evangelicalism ..... 137 The forces that disintegrated it . . '['he revision of the English Bible .... 143 The eharartrr of the Press ...... J^L^ Advances of education *...., i/j,(> The new school boards .,,,. 146 The universities . . . , . Edueai ion of women and twirls ..... 149 Dearth of science teaching . . . The arts at this time . . . . Reasons why they were bad ..... 1512 The campaign of William Morris . Architecture ....... l.r>f) Fainting and sculpture .*..,. 156 Music . . . . * , Literature . . . . . . Novels . . . . Poetry and history . . . * Law, classics, and philosophy . . . Imperialism and social reform . . . Social life: the development of games .... 1(14 The invention of lawn trnnis . Cycling ........ iGG Costumes . , , . . . Sex-morality ......*. i(>() The Dilke case . . . . * The Criminal Law Amendment Act . The campaign to repeal the G.D. Acts * . VI. LORD SALISBURY'S PRIME Formation of his second cabinet . . . Lord K. Churchill as chancellor of the exchequer . 3 li$ resignation ami fall . * . . Balfour becomes Irish secretary . * . Queen Victoria's first jubilee . .. . The first colonial conference . . * Ireland and the 'Plan of Campaign* . *Moody Sunday* in Trafalgar S(|uan: 1'htt Pigott forgeries . . . The Parnell Cjotnmissiori * . *

. . . . . ,

.127 .130 133 .136 . 137 i/jo

. . ,

147 .151 .152 155 . * . . . . 158 .159 .160 161 i(>u 10*3 itifj . . . . . * . . . * * .169 ,170 .171 .172 173 .174 .176 * 177 I7B ^178 iBo .181 * 183 iG7


x TABLE OF CONTENTS ThefallofParnell ....- *$3 O'Shea v. O'Shea and Parnell . . Gladstone bans Parnell . . * Parnell's death . . . . < The partition of Africa . The agreements of the year 1890 . The negotiation with Portugal . . The negotiation with Germany . . General orientation of the Powers . . Balkan crises of 1885-7 . . . Russia's transition from Germany to France . Lord Salisbury's Mediterranean treaty . . Bismarck offers an alliance . Salisbury's character as foreign minister . Goschen's finance . . . . Conversion of the National Debt . The County Councils Act ...... 203 Free education . . . The London dock strike . . The Newcastle programme ..... 207 Salisbury defeated at the polls ..... 208 VII. A LIBERAL INTERLUDE Gladstone's fourth ministry ..... 209 The Second Home Rule Bill . . , The conquest of Matabeleland . . * The Parish Councils Act . . . . Gladstone retires . . . . . Succession of Lord Rosebery , . . Activity of the House of Lords . . . Harcourt's death duties . . . . War between China and Japan . . . Armenian massacres . . . . The government's defeat . . . . General election of 1895 . . . . Foundation of the I.L.P. . . . . Changes in the personnel of politics .... 223 VIII. XHE ASCENDANCY OF CHAMBERLAIN Lord Salisbury's third ministry . . . Chamberlain at the colonial office . . . Conquest of Ashanti . . . . The Uitlanders in the Transvaal . . . Kruger's ambitions . . . President Cleveland's Message . . * The Jameson Raid . . . . The *Kruger telegram' ...... 232 Responsibilities for the raid ..... 233 Rising in Matabeleland .*..,, 236 Workmen's Compensation Act . . .

.183 .184 . . 186 .-187 *9* *92 J93 *94 - *95 196 198 *99 200 .201 .202 -204 .205

-

. . . . . . . .

.211 .212 - 213 .214 - 215 .216 .217 -219 .2x9 ,221 .221 . 222

.224 .225 225 . .226 . .227 . * 229 , * 231

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.

-237


UJe UOINTENTS xi Old age pension schemes . . . . . Armenian massacres at Constantinople Changes in the Liberal leadership .... 239 The colonial conference of 1897 ..... ^40 Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa .... 242 Kitchener re-conquers the Sudan ..... 244 The Fashoda dispute ...... 244 Milner sent to South Africa ..... 245 The Uitkindcr petition ...... 247 Negotiations preceding the war ..... 248 Responsibilities for the war ..... 249 The Boer ultimatum . . Initial British defeats ...... 253 Lord Roberts reverses the situation .... 254 The Boers adopt guerrilla warfare . Great Britain's isolation ...... 256 Cretan question and Turco-Oreek War , Germany's Navy Law and Bagdad scheme .... 258 The Powers scramble for China Chamberlain oilers an alliance to Germany . Chamberlain's second oiler . * Relief of the Pekin legations ..... 12(112 Colonial contingents for South Africa . Australian federation ...... 2% Death of Gladstone ...... 264 Foundation of the labour party .... * 265 The Khaki election ...... 267 Reconstruction of the cabinet ..... i2f>7 Death of Queen Victoria ...... sGB IX. ECONOMICS AND INSTITUTIONS, x8G-i$)oo Comparative populations .... * ifif> 257 25*) . 260 , a(ii 14%

271 273 77

*

Kft*

fi^4


xii TABLE OF CONTENTS Attempts at army reform .* 29 The Harrington commission * Failure to create a general staff . . Consequences in the South African War ... 292 Growth of bureaucracy at Whitehall .... 294 Growth of local government . Developments in London % Expansion of trade-unionism . Miners' lock-out in 1893 . Engineers' strike in 1897 ..... 3 Poverty and slums * Broad national progress .... 32 X. MENTAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS, 1886-1900 A period of unsettlement ...... 304 Shrinkage of organized religion ..... 305 Competition of other careers ..... 305 Impoverishment of country livings .... 306 Trial of the bishop of Lincoln . . . Statistics of church-going ..... 308 Changes in Sunday observance ..... 39 Revolution in the character of newspapers . . Career and consequences of Lord Northcliffe . Other developments . . . Educational developments . . . The Cross Commission * . . . The Bryce Commission . . . . Technical education . . . . Creation of the board of education .... 320 New universities and university colleges . . Free libraries . . . . . Art in convalescence . . . . Architecture . . . . * Arts and crafts, and painting * .... 325 Multiplication of art galleries . Music ........ 327 Literature . . . . . Drama . Learned works . . , . . Poetry ........ 330 Novels ........ 331 Ideas: Imperialism . . . . Decadence .,.... 333 Social crusade ..... 333 Nationalism in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales . Costume ...*,, 337 Women's emancipation .,.,., 339 Shortening of working hours ..... 34,0 Foundation of the National Trust ..... 340

29 .291 295 2Q6 -290 29^ 301

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37

3* 311 -3*5 3l & 3J 7 .318 .318 32 * . 322 ,322 * 323 326

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.328 - 328 * 329 . * * . 331

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335


TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii XI. THE UNIONIST DECLINE Character of Edward VII ...... 342 The civil list; the royal title ..... 344 The war: policy of concentration camps .... 345 'Methods uf barbarism' ...... 346 Peace of Vereeniging . . .^ Death of Rhodes . . .* . Hicks Beach's finance ...... 349 End of'splendid isolation' ...... 350 Alliance will) Japan ...... 352 Salisbury resigns: his character ..... 353 The Halfour cabinet ...... 354 Education Act of 1902 ...... 355 Wyndham's Irish policies ...... 358 Licensing Act of 1904 ...... 360 Committee of Imperial Defence Cawdor-Fisber naval reforms . The Anfjjlo-French Knfrnie ..... 365 The first Morocco crisis ...... 369 Fiscal controversy: the fourth colonial conference . Ritchie repeals the corn-duty . . . Chamberlain declares for imperial preference . Break-up iind reconstruction of the cabinet . The 'half-sheet of note-paper* ..... 376 The Chinese labour policy . . . The TafF Vale Case ...... 378 Unemployed Workmen Act 1905 . Bnlfour resigns, and his party leave office . Imperial episodes of the time ..... 381 XTL EDWARDIAN LIBERALISM Character of OampbelUBannerman ... * His cabinet . Unionist use of the House of Lords .... 386 Retirement of Chamberlain . The settlement of South Africa . Trade Disputes Act * * . . BirrelPs Education Bill .....* 392 Land Bills ........ 393 Campbell-Bannerman's resolutions against the Lords Merchant Shipping Act iyoC and Patents Act 1907 Haldarie's army reforms ....* 395 Asquith's budgets ..... 396 The militant sufFragisfs . Military conversations with France . The Anglo-German naval question . * Entente with Russia * The fifth colonial conference

, .

. 347 .348

3&* 363 * . , . . 30*4 . .371 .372 . 373 . 374 376 379 .381

38.5 3% 389 . 391

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. 393 * 394 397 399 * 401 * 40^ 405


xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS Death of Campbell-Bannerman ..... 406 Character of Asquith . 47 Start of old age pensions . . . /. . . 408 Lords reject the Licensing Bill .... 409 The Bosnian crisis . . * ..410 The Kaiser's Daily Telegraph interview . . . 411 The naval alarm of 1909 . . . .412 The Lloyd George budget of 1909 . . . -4*4 The lords reject the budget . . . . -4*7 General election of January 1910 . . .418 The dispute over'guarantees' . . . - 419 Introduction of the Parliament Bill . . .420 Death of Edward VII . . . . . . 420 XIII. HEADING FOR CATASTROPHE Accession of George V . . . . .422 The constitutional conference . . . . .422 The Parliament Bill and the Opposition alternatives . . 424 General Election of December 1910 . . . .427 The revolt of the 'Die-hards' ..... 428 Passage of the Parliament Act ..... 430 Anglo-German naval rivalry . . . . . 432 The Agadir crisis . . . . . . 433 Lloyd George's Mansion House speech .... 434 Controversy between war office and admiralty . . .435 Italy attacks Turkey and seizes Tripoli .... 436 The great strike movement of 1911-12 . . . -437 Seamen's strike: dock and transport strikes . . . 440 General railway strike . *> . . . .441 London dock dispute of 1912 . . . . 443 Payment of members ...... 444 National Insurance Act ...... 44.5 Change in the Unionist leadership ..... 446 The Declaration of London ..... 447 Difficulties with Russia over Persia .... 449 The Third Home Rule Bill . . . . . 450 Ulster opposition . . . . . -452 Its organization'under Carson: the Volunteers . . . 453 Asquith's vacillating attitude ..... 454 Bonar Law's 'Blenheim pledge' ..... 455 The Marconi affair . . . . ... 456 Extension of suffragist militancy ...... 459 The Haldane mission to Berlin . . . . .461 Naval dispositions: Franco-British exchange of letters . . 462 The Balkan Alliance ...... 463 The first Balkan War . . . , . 464 London ambassadors' conference . . . . 466 The second Balkan War ...... 468 Germany's war preparations , 469


JLAJ&J-J& U* VJUiN JL^INIS Grey's negotiations with Lichnowsky Further Irish developments Fruitless negotiations ...... 474 475 .... . . . .... . . . .... . . . .... . 490 . . . . 487 483 484 . . 480 . . . . .481 476 . . . . . .

XV .471 472

The Irish (National) Volunteers ..... Government's amending proposals The Gurragh episode The Larne gun-running . . . .

477 . . 479 480

Lord Murray of Eli bank's negotiation The Buckingham Palace conference The Howth gun-running .

Germany's further war preparations Interview between Moltke and Gonrad Russo-British naval conversations Golonel House's mission .... The Murders at Scrajevo

.481 .482

.

4?if, 486

Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia The negotiations preceding the war Disagreements in the British cabinet German ultimatum to Russia .....

489

The question of naval operations in the Channel The question of Belgian neutrality . The British cabinet still wavers German ultimatum to Belgium Grey's speech in parliament Redmond's speech ...... ..... . . 494 ..... 495 . 492

490 * 491

493 493

British ultimatum to Germany


Reflections on causes and effects

.

495

XIV. ECONOMICS AND INSTITUTIONS, 1901-14 Comparative populations . * * . . . 4,98 Changes in birth-rates and death rates .... 499 Stop in the growth of wealth per head .... 500 Upward tendency in prices . 502 Trade figures ....... 503 Comparisons with Germany and America , * * 503 The case of steel ...... 504 The Guriard subsidy . * . . , 505 The first British census of production .... 506 Technological changes ...... 507 Electric traction . . . . . 508 Effects of trsflnspoit on housing . 509 Motor-cars; aeroplanes; wireless telegraphy . * 5x0 Agriculture . . . , , .511 Problems of poverty in the towns . . * . , 513 The urban'labourer* . . . . . * 5*4 The Trade Boards Act 1909 . . . * * S*f> Labour exchanges and unemployment insurance * . . 516 Local governmexit board's hostility to progress * . 517


The poor law problem

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* > . * . . 523 . .

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*

5*7 .518 * 5*9 519 5yo 5* I * .522 52 *

The town planning problem Infants' welfare centres .

The National Insurance Act Prison reform .

Municipal and local advances Fisher's reforms in the navy, Fleet dispositions .

The reasons for the Dreadnought The navy's lack of a general staff Other naval problems . .

-522

24 525 525

Haldane's reforms in the army

The Committee of Imperial Defence

Table analysing the growth of expenditure after 1900 XV. MENTAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS, 1901-14 A new impulse of idealism State of organized religion . . . The churches and the labour movement .... 528 The St. Aldwyn commission on church discipline. Church schools . . . . . Welsh disestablishment ...... 530 Growth of tolerance in religious thought . * The Press changes . . . . Consummation of the Harmsworth revolution . Northcliffe buys The Times ..... 534 The race for circulations . . . Re-assuring features ...... 535 Rapid progress in education ..... 536 Secondary schools ...... 536 Universities . . . . . The Workers' Educational Association .... 538 Ruskin Hall and the labour movement . . The reform of school buildings ..... 539 Architecture . . . . . Painting . . . . . . The National 4rt Collections Fund . . Music ........ 543 The recording of English folk-song .... 544 The rise of the British school of composers .

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*

526

527 .527

. 529 530 531 .532 532 -534

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-537 , 538

540 * 54* -543 * 545


Literature . , . . . The new English drama . Reforms in dramatic representation . . Novels ........ QJQ Poetry ........ 549 Changes in the written language . Learned books . . . . . Science: disturbing effect of new discoveries

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545 54C -547 550 -551 * * 551

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TABLE OF CONTENTS xvii Subversion and constriction 553 Impulses of 'escape' ...... 553 The Boy Scout movement . 554 Costume ........ 554 Social life ........ 555 The Gorell commission on divorce law .... 556 A period of germination * . . 557 APPENDIXES A. Gladstone's Attitude to Home Rule before the General Election of 1885 . . . . . . 558 B. The Private Background of ParnclPs Career . . . 564 C. Questions of Foreign Policy ..... 567 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 576 LISTS OF CABINETS, 1870-1914 .... 606 INDEX . . . * . . . . 615


LIST OF MAPS (at end) 1. The Balkans 2. Afghanistan about 1880 9 3. Eastern Sudan. Boundaries at the close of the igth century 4. South Africa, 1899-1902 5. Africa, 1871 6. Africa, 1914 7. County Boroughs, 1888-1914


INTRODUCTION WHEN the guns of the Franco-Prussian war first thundered in earnest on 4 August 1870 a new epoch began, although Europe at the time did not know it. At midnight of the same day just forty-four years later the sands of Great Britain's ultimatum to Germany ran out; and with them the epoch ended. It is the task of the present volume to trace the history of England during these forty-four years. Why did the war of 1870 inaugurate a period in a sense in which no other since Waterloo had done? Why was it in a different class from the wars of 1854, of 1859, or of 1866, all of which had engaged Great Powers and two of which helped to unify great nations? For three principal reasons. First because it transferred from France to Germany the political ascendancy over Europe, which the former, with only passing interruptions, had exercised for well beyond two centuries. Secondly, because the singular completeness of the victor's success (he not only won all his objects in six months, but covered the whole of his military expenses by the war indemnity) gave the world a new conception of war's possibilities as an instrument of policy under modern highly-organised conditions. Thirdly, because the defeat of France's professional army by the conscript reservists of Prussia was the triumph of a particular system. It led speedily to the adoption of nation-wide military conscription by all considerable continental states. Europe's long vigil under arms'powerless from terror of her own vast power'was the logical outcome, and the catastrophe of 1914 its quasi-inevitable climax. But the period is also a very distinct one for the internal history of our island; and here (if again we try counting) it may be viewed in at least five different lights. To begin with, it witnessed the conversion of English government into a democracy, Disraeli's Act of 1867 had opened the first breach in the narrow franchise of 1832. But it took a little time to make itself felt, and needed for its completion the Ballot Act of 1872 and the rural franchise extension of 1884. Equally necessary was it that other organs of democracy should be developed besides the central parliament* Such were supplied by the system of elective municipal government; which had its franchise democratized before Disraeli's Act, but was extended in different forms to the rural areas and


the metropolis by the County Councils Act of 1888, the Local Government Act of 1894, and the London Government Act of 1899. In the same order of things came the emergence of the trade unions. These bodies had existed long before 1870, but their memberships were comparatively small and their activities semi-illegal. Partly owing to the Trade Union Acts of 1871, 1876, and 1906, partly as a natural result of the interplay between industrialism and popular education, and partly through the brains and character of individual leaders, they gradually developed the great powers whose range first became fully apparent about 1911-12. Secondly, the same period saw the conversion of the English as a whole into a school-taught and literate people. Mr. Footer's famous act, passed in the summer of 1870, concerns the historian . of an earlier period, but all its consequences fall within this one. Mr. Forster made elementary education national (though compulsion was not completed till 1880); Lord Salisbury in 1891 made it free; and the Balfour Act of 1902 combined it with secondary and technical education in something like a single state system administered through the main organs of local government. These acts mark stages; but progress was continual. Already by 1886 out of 2,416,272 voters at the general election in England and Wales only 38,587 were illiterate; though the proportion among voteless adults would no doubt be higher. But in the last decade of our period illiteracy had been razed off our map, taking a considerable proportion of the nation's crime with it; and the fact that parents as well as children had been to school began to create quite new possibilities in spheres like that of public health work. Thirdly, this is the period in which English agriculture was ruined. It is a common error to suppose that it collapsed with the repeal of fche corn laws. On the contrary, it remained the foremost in the world for nearly thirty years longer. It was not till 1872 that the plough reached its maximum extension over English soil. That was the culmination of English wheat-growing under the sheep-and-corn rotations. The slump began soon after; it was acute by 1878. By 1914 the area of arable land in England and Wales had diminished by 3! million acres or 26 per cent.; the number of persons employed in farming had fallen in almost exactly the same proportion; and the acreage of wheat had shrunk by nearly one half. As, conversely, the


xx INTRODUCTION the metropolis by the County Councils Act of 1888, the Local Government Act of 1894, and the London Government Act of 1899. In the same order of things came the emergence of the trade unions. These bodies had existed long before 1870, but their memberships were comparatively small and their activities semi-illegal. Partly owing to the Trade Union Acts of 1871, 1876, and 1906, partly as a natural result of the interplay between industrialism and popular education, and partly through the brains and character of individual leaders, they gradually developed the great powers whose range first became fully apparent about 1911-12. Secondly, the same period saw the conversion of the English as a whole into a school-taught and literate people. Mr. Forstcr's famous act, passed in the summer of 1870, concerns the historian of an earlier period, but all its consequences fall within this one. Mr. Forster made elementary education national (though compulsion was not completed till 1880); Lord Salisbury in 1891 made it free; and the Balfour Act of 1902 combined it with secondary and technical education in something like a single state system administered through the main organs of local government. These acts mark stages; but progress was continual. Already by 1886 out of 2,416,272 voters at the general election in England and Wales only 38,587 were illiterate; though the proportion among voteless adults would no doubt be higher. But in the last decade of our period illiteracy had been razed off our map, taking a considerable proportion of the nation's crime with it; and the fact that parents as well as children had been to school began to create quite new possibilities in spheres like that of public health work. Thirdly, this is the period in which English agriculture was ruined. It is a common error to suppose that it collapsed with the repeal of the corn laws. On the contrary, it remained the foremost in the world for nearly thirty years longer. It was not till 1872 that the plough reached its maximum extension over English soil. That was the culmination of English wheat-growing under the sheep-and-corn rotations. The slump began soon after; it was acute by 1878. By 1914 the area of arable land in. England and Wales had diminished by 3^ million acres or 26 per cent; the number of persons employed in farming had fallen in almost exactly the same proportion; and the acreage of wheat had shrunk by nearly one half. As, conversely, the


INTRODUCTION and population of England and Wales swelled from 225712,266 at the 1871 census to 36,070,492 at the 1911 census (an increase not far short of 60 per cent, in forty years), it followed that the country's inability to feed itself was sensationally enhanced. To a degree never matched elsewhere in human records on any similar scale, the English became dependent for their daily bread and meat upon sea-borne imports, which could only be purchased by the export of industrial goods or services. But, fourthly, it was during these same years that English manufacturing industry, for the first time since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, began to find its export trade seriously threatened by foreign competition. The causes and character of this development will be discussed later; we must be content here to note its novelty. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries English exporters had, of course, had rivals abroad. But the objects of foreign trade were then very different. It was rather a luxury than a necessity; a mere fringe on the life of a self-supporting nation. And when after the Industrial Revolution our exports began to be our livelihood, for several generations no foreigners could compete with us on level terms. Trade had its cycles of good and bad; but where we failed to sell it was because our customers abroad lacked purchasing power, not because other nations had supplanted us in their custom. This continued even for a few years after 1870; but then the process of supplanting set in. The United States started producing goods in many lines where hitherto she had bought ours. Country after country in western Europe launched into manufacturing for the world at large. Germany, in particular, multiplied mammoth industrial cities, with soaring birth-rates and mushroom populations, needing export markets to live on no less than we. Foreign trade came thus to wear, as it never had before in history, the aspect of a struggle for existence between rival manufacturing nations; among whom densely populated England ran bigger risks than any other, while no longer enjoying any monopolist lead. Lastly, this period supplied part of the foundations and most of the superstructure to the British Empire as we now know it* For India alone it was by comparison uneventful. Canada had formed a federal nucleus in 1867, but more than half of her habitable area and six out of her ten provinces were added or constituted from 1870 onwards. Australia was federated in 1900;


xxii INTRODUCTION the Union of South Africa in 1910; while New Zealand developed from rather a struggling settlement into a prosperous nation during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, The Egyptian campaign of 1885 was the first in which selfgoverning colonies sent contingents of troops to fight beside those of the mother country. And the Colonial Conference, first called in 1887, was the germ of the Imperial Conference, which has since become so vital for the constitution of a British Commonwealth of Nations. Elsewhere this same period witnessed, especially in the tropics, an enormous amount of 'painting the map red5. Not only was Egypt occupied, the Suez Canal controlled, Upper Burma conquered, and Malaya developed, but (save for the ex-German territories mandated to her after the European war) nearly the whole of Great Britain's immense colonial domains in tropical and sub-tropical Africa were acquired. The phrase, 'the fourth British Empire', which is sometimes applied to these last, may scarcely exaggerate their importance; but she owes them almost entirely to private initiatives. With the exception of Joseph Chamberlain, very few cabinet ministers at the time cared much about their acquisition, or were prepared to spend public money on their development. And though Malaya (thanks to tin and rubber) had progressed rapidly before 1914, this was not true of the African colonies, which in many instances lagged behind those of other powers. Such are perhaps the main features for England of the period upon whose story we are entering. It is well to start with them clear in our heads, that we may not lack clues in the endless labyrinth of facts and events. But it would be easy to lengthen the list The student of administration, for instance, will note that side by side with a democratic machinery for ascertaining and expressing the people's will there grew up a bureaucratic machinery for giving it effect August 31,1870, the date at which the entry to the Civil Service was thrown open to competitive examination, marks a point of departure. From then onwards may be traced a steady and rapid expansion in the si'/e, number, and efficiency of the government departments, whichfollowed at short distance by similar expansions on the municipal side revolutionized the scope and role of government itself. Similarly, to solve the physical problems involved in feeding the overpopulated island a whole new and miraculous technology of


INTRODUCTION xxiii food transport and preservationgram elevators, meat and fruit canneries, refrigerating plants, specialized shippingwas developed in this period overseas and here. In the sphere, again, of political controversies nearly the whole of that phase in AngloIrish relations which is associated with the phrase 'Home Rule* falls between 1870 and 1914. So, in tjic sphere of adventurous discovery, do the concluding stages in man's survey of his earth's surface! the unravelling of the last secrets of Africa and the conquest of both the Poles. So again do a host of major scientific discoveries, and many revolutionary inventions in the arts both of peace and war. So, in England, do some very important social developments consequent on legal changes; e.g. the general supersession of direct individual ownership by ownership through limited companies in almost every sphere of industry and trade, and the emancipation, for contractual and property-owning purposes, of married women. So, likewise, does the greater part of the gradual but overwhelming revolution in the English birthrate brought about by the use of contraceptives; and so does a silent but easily distinguished change in the sphere filled by religion. The country's political history during the forty-four years falls pretty sharply and obviously into three more or less equal subperiods. The first extends to the defeat and resignation of Gladstone's third cabinet in i !!8fi; the second from thence to the death of Queen Victoria; and the third down to the outbreak of the European war. In the first, the dominant figures are Gladstone, Disraeli, and Parncll; in the second, Salisbury and Joseph Chamberlain; while the third, though it extends four years beyond the death of King Edward, might conveniently be labelled Ecl>vard5an, The dividing lines correspond not only to the main changes of current in the country's internal politics, but, within only a few years each way, to those in the orientation of its foreign policy, and also to movements of ideas and periods of cultural development. The present volume, therefore, has been conformed to this triple division; and the chapters are so grouped as to treat each of the sub-periods in turn under all its main heads. It is believed that this arrangement will be for the convenience of the reader; whose greatest difficulty, when examining a period about which so much is known, must always be not to lose sight of the wood for the trees.



I GLADSTONE'S PRIME DURING the decade 1870-80 one feature above all others shaped the surface of British politicsthe personal duel, continuous save for a period following 1874, hctwcen two figures of tremendous stature, Gladstone and Disraeli. Its first few years fail outside the period of this volume; and what narrowed the combat to a duel was the death (in October 1865) of Palmcrston. The only quite comparable episode in English history is the similar rivalry of Pitt and Fox; and the well-known lines, in which Sir Walter Scott characterized that earlier contest, might be applied without change to the later. Now as then the champions seemed With more than mortal powers endowed; now as (hen Beneath each banner proud to stand, Looked up tin* noblest of the land; though in the later case, unlike the earlier, they were not themselves born aristocrats, but the one was a baptised Jew, and the other (although educated at Eton) eame of Scottish merchantfolk who had made money in the Liverpool slave-trade. To understand their pre-eminence, one must appreciate the paramount interest which the English public then took in Parliamentary proceedings. In the seventies of last century there were no film stars, no foot bull champions, no speed supermen, no male or funulo aviators, no tennis heroes or heroines; even cricket (W. G, Grace started playing in lirst-dass matches in 1864,) was only beginning to be much noticed in the newspapers. The people's daily tluetuulkms of excitement, of expectancy, of heroworship, which are dissipated now over these and many other fields were concentrated then upon the house of commons. The turf and the pulpit were its only rivals; and neither equalled it, while the pulpit (by popularr/ing the taste for oratory) rather helped its vogue. Parliamentary speeches were reported prominently ami at length in all the newspapers; they were read aloud and discussed in homes and public-houses. Points scored or lost in debute across the Hour of the house of commons were uot merely noted by the members present, but followed with rapt mo** 4 it


2 GLADSTONE'S PRIME attention throughout the country. Working men canvassed the form and prospects of parliamentary leaders much as they now do those of dirt-track racers. The dazzle of the brightest lights was unforgettable. As late as 1900 an old village worker in Somerset wished to convey to the present writer his sense of the eminence of a local worthy. 'He held', he said, 'a position in the neighbourhood like that which the late Lord Palmers ton used to hold in this country,' Palmcrston had then been dead thirtyfive years. Of the mighty protagonists now before us Disraeli celebrated his sixty-sixth birthday in December 1870, and Gladstone his sixty-first in the same month. Both were then at the height of their powers. Disraeli's waned gradually after he was 70, rapidly after 75; and he died at 76. Gladstone, who lived to be 88 and was in office as Prime Minister at 84, nevertheless, like Disraeli, underwent a change about 70. As a consequence, common estimates of him. to-day rarely do him full justice. For the phases of his character and record, which to old men now living are a personal memory and which younger men may have overheard on the lips of since-dead relatives, arc those from 1880 onwards, when, though still phenomenal, he was altogether past his best, One has to get behind this, and study at first hand the speeches, newspapers, and other contemporary records of the sixties ami seventies, to realize his almost incredible magnitude in his prime. Then for a period of years he displayed all-round parliamentary powers, which it is difficult to believe can ever have been quite equalled, and which in one situation after another simply astounded friend and foe alike. It is not the least part of Disraeli's credit that in presence of such a human tornado he never lost his footing or his nerve, but by the cool and dexterous use of his own very different resourcesin particular through the strange partnership of a daring imagination with a resilient and inscrutable ironywas able always to maintain a fighting front. Gladstone had taken office as prime minister for the first time in 1868 at the head of a party formed by a fusion of whigs, Peelites, and radicals, to which the term 'liberal* was first regularly applied in England. Born of Disraeli's (1867) cxteasion of the franchise, this was the greatest reforming Parliament since that born of the original extension in 1832. The sessions of 1869 and 1870 fall outside the present volume; in the first the Irish Church had been disestablished; in the second two other measures of


BKLGIAN NEUTRALITY IN 1870 3 prime importance,, the first Irish Land Act and the great English Education Act, had become law. At the same time an Order in Council of 4 June 1870 had thrown open to competitive examination the entry (as from 31 August) to nearly all branches of the civil service except the foreign office. Such had been the first instalments of reform from a govcrruncnt intent on realizing in many further dinT.tions the aim which they all embodied, viz. to abolish class privileges and unbar to all the doors ofpolitical, economic, and cultural opportunity. Debates on them still occupied the public mind of the United Kingdom, when in August the thunders of the Franco-Prussian war pealed out, if not from a blue sky, at any rate with a shock very little prepared for. The army estimates in the previous spring had been for less than 13 millions, and provided less than n 0,000 regulars and reservists to be available for service abroad, including all those needed for our many overseas garrisons. Ten thousand was the largest expeditionary force that the war office could contemplate; arid only by paring and scraping could the necessary f) infantry battalions of 850 men be constituted for it.1 Thus the spectacle of a war, in whose first stage Prussia and her associates mobilized under arms 475,000 men with adequate reserves behind them, laid suddenly bare the relative impotence of Great Britain to interfere on the Continent At two points, nevertheless, her interference was soon needed. The first was Belgium, whose neutrality we had guaranteed together with France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia by the Treaty of J ,omlon in i Jtyf). 'J 'his neutrality had been deemed a British and a Prussian, but not a French, interest. As far back as 1852 Napoleon III (then prince president of France) had signed a decree annexing Belgium, but withdrew it before publication. In 1870, between the declaration of war and the start of the fighting, Bismarck published a draft treaty with the same-object, three or four years old,2 and in the handwriting of Napoleon Ill's ambassador, Henedttlti. Gladstone thereupon took prompt action* He invited both France and Prussia to sign short treaties reaffirming the guarantee of 1839, and providing that, if the armies of either country violated the neutrality of Belgium, Great Britain 1 Sir Robert Biddulph, />, but ttianmrck made it appear to date from 1867. Cp. Albert Sorcl, ttistoirt DiplumatifjiM dt la tiucm FrtmM~AlUmand* (1875), i 2$~8; G, Eothmu, la Mitiqiu Franpitt lishment, the colonies being encouraged to raise their own local forces instead. Thus was abandoned another WellingUmian policy that of hiding the British army during peace in scattered driblets over distant places. Its motive had been to dodge the traditional hostility of the whigs to a standing unriy. But it was fatal to strategic economy and to anything beyond battalion training. Still harder ground was broken in the summer of 1870. Parliament passed an Army Enlistment (short service) Act; and the queen was induced to sign reluctantly (28 June) an Order in Council subordinating the commawler-in-chief to the secretary of state. How much further reform might have gone but for Sedan and Met/,, it is impossible to say. Cardwdl had the great ad vantage of enjoy ing < iladst one's financial confidenceso much so that some hacl backed him for chancellor of the exchequer. But Ixtforfi any thorough army changes could fructify, a very strong obstacle must be removed. This was the system of obtaining commissions and promotions in the army by purchase. It had wide and deep roots throughout upper-class society, and, as we .shall sec* was eventually only overcome by a sort of coup d'Mat. But for the war of 1870-1 there could hardly have been, 1 It w,w not ahoUfthcdl for active icrvice also until


io GLADSTONE'S PRIME as there was, a public opinion to sustain Gladstone in such an extreme course. The story may first be briefly outlined. CardwclPs Army Regulation Bill, 1871, was introduced in the commons. It covered a good deal else besides abolishing purchase; but purchase was the sole issue, fought over. After fierce obstruction it was passed, and went to the lords. That house by 155 votes to 130 carried a motion which in form shelved the bill, but in effect defeated it. On the second day following, the government announced that purchase was by royal warrant abolished. As the bill had provided generous compensation for the officers and there would be none at all without its passage, the lords had now perforce to pick it down off their shelf and pass it. Conservatives, and also some radicals (e.g. Professor Fawcctt), declaimed shrilly against what they deemed an abuse of the Prerogative, But the country, which wanted security, and felt that purchase had blocked the way to it, simply refused to take notice. Such being the events in their order, let us now examine their bearings. 'Purchase' as a legally recognized institution went back at least to the decision in Ive v. Ash (1702). At different times attempts had been made to regulate it, and there existed a tariff of prices which might be lawfully paid; but by the usage of the service large competitive additions were made to these. Service opinion was almost universally in favour of the system. It had been extolled by Wellington in a famous Memorandum of 1833; and in 1841 Lord Melbourne's Commission, which comprised the leading soldiers of the day, had praised it as furthering the promotion and retirement of officers, and thereby making for their physical efficiency. In 1850 the aged Wellington, with two other officers who afterwards became Lord Raglan and Lord Panmure, signed another Report to the same effect. Later reports during the following twenty years were mainly confirmatory. Lord Palmcrston upheld the system; as the whig party had done for a century and a half. Yet its vices were self-evident. It obstructed any remapping, however advisable, of the regimental units. It prevented the selection and promotion of officers by merit. It enabled rich youths to buy themselves into positions for which they were quite untrained. Radicals could have criticized it as giving privilege to wealth; soldiers, as bestowing security and high rank upon incompetence. If in fact neither criticism had made head-


ABOLITION OF 'PURCHASE' n way, it was that England had no notion of the art of war. British officers were expected to be gentlemen and sportsmen; but cxiJt^ side the barrack-yard they were, as Wolscley testified later ih retrospect, 'entirely wanting in military knowledge'. The lack of it was deemed no drawback, since Marlborough's and Wellington's officers got on without. Only the rise of Prussian military science, exemplified first in i8GG arid then in 1870, availed to shake this complacency. Even so the number of officers opposed to purchase was tiny. There were now a few in or around the war office. They were all under 40Colonel Wolscley9 lately back from Canada with very great credit for putting clown the Red River rebellion; Major George Col Icy, a leading professor at the staff college; Major Robert Bidclulph, CardwelFs military secretary; Captain Henry Brackenbury; and Captain Evelyn Baring (afterwards Lord Cromcr), engaged in what eventually became the Intelligence Branch. Though they all attained distinguished careers later,1 they had nearly every senior officer against them, from the duke* of Cambridge down; and in the sequel not even Wolseley himself was ever quite, forgiven by the service caste. With them, but particularly with Wolseley and Baring, Cardwell acted in complete sympathy. So did the undersecretary, Lord Northbrook, who was Baring's first cousin. Gladstone himself became whole-hearted in support. The liberals rallied generally to the anti-privilege argument; great play being made with the case of Lord Cardigan,2 which, though more than a generation old, was only an extreme example of what purchase would still permit. In the house of commons Disraeli, though officially opposing Cardwoll's bill as a government measure, warily left most of the criticism to service members. A knot of colonels fought hard, and Sir Roundel! Palmer (riot then in the government) accused them of 'endeavouring to bailie the majority by mere consumption of time'* This seems to be the 1 But Cromer'a was outside the army, which he virtually quitted on account of this epwmie. * 1 James, 7th carl of Cardigan 0707~iBo"{i), had entered the army in 1824, and Almost immediately bought his way into the command of the Xfjlh Htmars. In 1833 he had to leave it, owinj; to the acquittal of an otticer whom he had illegally put under arrest; but three years later he bought himself the command of the nth Hussars. These proceedings cost him many tens of thousands of pounds, but he was a rirh peer who could easily afford them. Fortunately for the reformers hit name (though he led the Six Hundred at Balaclava) was unpopular in the aervtcc*


I2 GLADSTONE'S PRIME first example of obstruction, in the modern sense, in the house of commons; and it is worth noticing that it occurred in the very first parliament elected on a wide franchise. The second extended the evil much farther; and the third, as we shall see, carried it to a crisis. The debate in the lords also had features which pointed forward. For almost the first time since 1832 the peers were brought into naked and downright conflict with the commons by class motives on a class issue. And in this many whigs, headed by Earl (formerly Lord John) Russell, sided with the tories against the liberals. The whig earl Grey and tory carl of Carnarvon made very similar speeches. Their kernel was that the purchase system kept officering as an occupation for gentlemen, ancl not a trade for professional men. If it became the latter, it might menace our go-easy oligarchic liberties; and they preferred an inefficient army to an authoritarian state. The royal warrant procedure, by which the lords' resistance was outflanked, was defended by Gladstone as not involving the Prerogative. What the queen did, he said, was to cancel the warrant, under which purchase was legal, ancl frame a new one, under which it was not; and this she could do, not by exercising the Prerogative, but under statutory powers conferred by an act of George III.1 Lord Cairns in the house of lords weightily challenged the legality of this; and in the house of commons, while the attorney-general (Sir R. Collier) rested the government's action on the statute, the solicitor-general (Sir J. Coleridge) relied on the Prerogative. The point is now of minor importance, since Professor Fawcett's fear that the precedent would be repeated and grow into a new tyranny of the Crown over parliament, has in any case not been reul'wxl To Cardwell and his associates the abolition of purchase was a reform desired less for its own sake than as opening the door to others. Partly by his series of acts, and partly by administrative measures, he transformed the army. The main points of change were these. * First he divided the business of the war department into three sections, of which the newly subordinated command (tr-in-duef, the surveyor-general of the ordnance, and the financial secretary were to be the respective heads, all acting under the responsibility of the secretary of state. He concentrated the three 1 49 Gco, III, c. ia6.


REFORMS AT THE WAR OFFICE 13 branches under one roof by moving the office of the commanderin-chief and the army head-quarters staff from the old Horse Guards in Whitehall to the war oflice, which was then in Pall Mall. Greatly increased powers and responsibilities were conferred upon the connnander-in-r.lucf. He was given command of all the land forces of die Crown, regular and auxiliary, both at home and abroad. As part of the process, the right of appointing olliccrs in the militia, which had hitherto belonged to the lords-lieutenant of counties, was taken from them and transferred to the war oflice. Here was a distinct blow at the territorial oligarchy. With this went a measure of staff reform. In almost every other army it had become usual to attach to every general officer one staff uflirer, who was his alter ego. In the British army there were two, and the dualism went right up to the top, where the adjutant-general and the quartermaster-general were of coequal and rival authority. Cardwell abolished this, and the quartermaster-general at the war oflice became an oilicer of the adjutant-general's department. But that was as far as he dared go. The full status of Yhief of staff was only instituted in wars (and not even then in laclia); and the army had to wait till the twentieth century before a proper permanent general staff was organized on continental lines. Next, there was the problem of the men. From Waterloo to 1847 men were enlisted for twenty-one years' service with the colours practically for life. This was the Wellingtonian system. Together with Hogging, it had given army service its penal servitude diameter; but it had also the fatal disadvantage of rendering impossible? a reserve. In 1847 ^1C period was lowered to twelve years; but it was still too long. The lesson of the Franco-Prussian war was the absolute necessity of a trustworthy army reserve of well-trained men in the full vigour of their manhood. Every soldier in the line regiments served more than half his time abroad, most commonly in India or the tropics; and after twelve years then* physique was seldom good enough. Oardwell therefore introduced short service. Men were enlisted for six years with the colours and six in the reserves.1 Senior officers shook their heads, but the system worked, and was the basis of our remarkable success in war throughout the Wolseley period, 1 He would h:iv liked to give an option of three with the colours and nixie in the reserve hut 1m advisers would nut &o so far.


I4 GLADSTONE'S PRIME Recruiting greatly improved, and service in the army became popular, so far as it could while Gladstonian economy maintained the pitifully low rates of pay. Following this (in 1872-4) the infantry was rearmed with the Martini-Henry rifle. This was the first satisfactory breech-loading rifle in the British army, though after the war of 1866 our old muzzle-loading Enfields had been converted into rather inefficient breech-loaders on the Snider system. It is worth recalling that the prince consort, not long before his death, had vainly urged breech-loaders upon Palmerston as far back as October 1861. Thirdly, there was the problem of regimental reorganization. The old regiments of the line, which were known by numbers and for the most part lacked any territorial basis,1 had long histories and strong esprit de corps. But few of their battalions could muster more than 500 men. They were hard to recruit and still harder to expand; and they could not develop any organic links with the auxiliary forcesmilitia and volunteerswhich were territorial. Card well, therefore, proceeded to territorialize all infantry of the line. He divided Great Britain and Ireland iato sixty-nine infantry regimental districts, each containing die depot of the regiment to be associated with its territory. Each of these county regiments was to comprise at least two regular battalions, with one, two, or three battalions of militia, and generally all the volunteer infantry belonging to the district. With fusions here and dovetailings there, the existing line regiments were fitted into the scheme, and carried their histories, their battle-honours, and their fighting traditions to the depots of the new organization. At first, to smooth over the transition, long and cumbrous titles were bestowed on the resulting units. But it was always intended that they should eventually come to be known by their plain county names, and within less than a generation these were well established. In the twentieth century it probably occurs to few people that the Durhams, say, or the Dorsets owe their existence as such to Cardwell, or that the proud battle-honours of Vittoria or Plassey, which appear on their colours, were earned by units who had nothing to do with cither county. The object of attaching at least two battalions to each depot 1 i.e. any basis in a particular recruiting territorynot in Territorials', which were a twentieth-century introduction.


THE RE-ORGANIZED ARMY 15 was, that one should be always at the depot, while the other was on foreign service. This was CardwelPs famous 'linked battalion' system. Recruits in those days were nearly all the merest boys, and needed several years' home training before they were fit to send abroad. By alternating the foreign service of the battalions every few years, it was possible to cnsuKC that the units abroad consisted always of seasoned material. To this as much as anything may be attributed the notably good fighting record of British troops overseas between 1871 and 1899. The cavalry regiments, whose officers wielded more social influence than any, Card well dared not touch to reorganize; though he increased the total of their establishments from 8,762 men to 10,421*. The artillery he localized like the infantry; though it was imperfectly subdivided owing to the continuance of the system of working the Royal Artillery as a single regiment. Cardwell regarded artillery as an arm in which the mechanistic nation should be relatively strong. He increased its total of horsed guns from 180 to 336, and added about 5,000 men. His efforts here, however, were largely sterilized by the conservatism of the ordnance officers; who actually insisted at this time on going back to muzzle-loading cannon, and thereby kept us behind the rest of Europe for a good part of twenty years. On the morrow of the Franco-Prussian war this was truly an astonishing folly; the more so, because the worth of breech-loading artillery in war had been first demonstrated by British gunners in the China war of i8(Jo. This comprehensive programme of army changes, mostly authorized or foreshadowed by his acts of 1870 and 1871, was Card well's daily work, in the teeth of incessant opposition, during the following three years. 11 e had the satisfaction of seeing it achieved beyond reversal before he left office with the fall of the Gladstone government in 1874, He was then completely worn out. He took a peerage and retired into private life. His reforms during the quarter of a century following left a broad mark on British history* Without them not only would prompt and crucial successes, such as the Egyptian campaign of i88'V have been unobtainable, but the power-prestige, which Lord Salisbury had behind him in his diplomacy, would scarcely have existed in the same way. Not their least exceptional feature * A$ handsomely admitted in Gladstone's letter to him of 15 September 1883 (BidduJph, op, cit,> p. 847).


:6 GLADSTONE'S PRIME was their economy. Cardwell left the estimates lower than he found them, and yet he had increased the strength of the army in the United Kingdom by 25 battalions, 156 field-guns, and abundant stores, while the reserves available for foreign service had been raised from 3,545 to 35,905 men. In the reorganization as a whole there were two flaws. One was that the duke of Cambridge remained commander-in-chicf, and from then till his resignation in 1895 obstructed progress in the central direction of the army as a fighting machine.1 The: other was the omission to construct a proper general staff, the lack of which led to our blunders and break-downs in the South African campaign of 1899. Their combined effects proved eventually very serious, but the second was a corollary ol'the first, and the first was beyond any war minister's power to alter at that period. Here we may take our leave of Cardwell. He was an exceedingly able man, who had seemed designated for a more general political career, as Gladstone's lieutenant and perhaps his successor. Instead, he exhausted his prime on this single vast specialized task; rendering to his country a unique service, for which he has not always been too generously remembered. Among his parliamentary associates at the war office two young men may be mentioned; for we shall meet them a/;un hereafter, both there and in wider fields. One was Mr. Henry CampbellBannerman, M.P., who in 1871 became financial secretary. The other was the fifth marquis of Lansdownc, who in 1872, when Lord Northbrook went to India as Viceroy, became undersecretary. The other reform of most scope carried by the Administration before its fall was that of the English Judicature. J Us author was Roundell Palmer, first Lord Selborne;2 who became lord chancellor in ^872, when Lord Hathcrlcy had to retire owing to loss of eyesight. A speech which he made in the house of commons in 1867, when an cx-attorncy-gcncral, had led to the ap~ 1 The duke (1819-1904) was the queen's first cousin, and held his post because she wished (as the prince consort had) that tlits commanckr-in-chkf should be a member of the royal family. For a characterization of him as an obstructive force, see Field-Marshal Sir W. Robertson, From Private to Field-Marshal (if>i), 17. 2 B. 1812. Educated at Kugby, Winchester, and Trinity College, Oxford; the greatest chancery advocate of his day; solicitor-general, 1861; attorney-general, 1863-6; lord chancellor, 1872-4,1880-5; d. 1895. He, Cardwell the war minister, and Lowe the chancellor of the exchequer, had been friend* at school together.


THE JUDICATURE ACT 17 pointment of an exceedingly strong royal commission with Lord Cairns, Disraeli's chancellor, as chairman.1 This body reported in 1869, and in 1871 Lord Hathcrlcy introduced a bill; but (like an earlier one by Cairns) it was, to quote Lord Selborne, ctoo much in ske.lcton form', and came to nothing. Lord Sd borne long afterwards described the bill, which became the Judicature Act i73, as 'the work of my own hand, without any assistance beyond what I derived from the labours of my predecessors; and it passed', he added, 'substantially in the form in which 1 proposed it9. It was indeed an admirable piece of drafting. Lord Claims supported it heartily, and it was piloted through the house of commons by two law officers, Sir John Coleridge and Sir George Jessel (both afterwards eminent judges), who were highly qualified to speak respectively for the common law and the equity side. The act was a piece of tidying up upon the largest scale in a field littered with the most venerable survivals from the middle ages. Down to 1873 modern England retained two legal systems side by sidethe common law administered in one set of courts, and equity, which overrode it, administered in another. The act 'fused' them by providing that they should be administered concurrently in every court by every judge, and that, where their rules conflicted, the rules of equity should prevail. But it did more; it remodelled the courts themselves. At that time there were still three separate common law courts of unlimited jurisdiction Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer. Each had a chief and puisne judges; each traced jurisdiction back to Edward 1; and the only machinery which kept them at one was the court called the Exchequer Chamber, in which appeals from the judges of any of them were heard by judges of the other two. The Court of Chancery, which administered equity, had since 18511 >eon regularly < >rganized in two instances'the first manned by the lord chancellor, the master of the rolls, and three vice1 The nthrr innnbrrit wrre: Lord Halherley, Sir W. Krk (chief justice of the common plea*), Sir Jatnrs Wilde (afterward* Lord Pem;aw:e), Sir R. Phillirnnre, Mr. G. Ward Hunt, Mr. U. (I.E. Chikkrs, Lord Justicr Jamra, Mr, Baron (after* wards Lord) Brawwdl, Mr. Justice (aftrrwards Lord) IJla the duke of Bedford, refused to endow it, on the ground that no Russell should receive a peerage, ev